Another thing - Lolth used to be the 'Fate-spinner' of the seldarine, and now tRQ has that portfolio, so if she is elven (and Mike Mearls hinted she was), then it looks like she got some of Lolth's stuff as well (I am still thinking a handmaiden in the Seldarine court, who became 'collateral damage' when everything went bad).

quote:Originally posted by sleyvas

Auril (as Aurilandur) also has strong ties to the Avariel

Its probably a 'mountaintop' thing (ice-capped mountain eyries).

Thats interesting. I had decided I was going to respin Rhiannon (an ancient Fey power) as the original version of Aerdrie Faenya, who joined the Seldarine (as a part of Angharradh) when Lolth got the boot. Assuming here that Lolth was part of the original tripartite deity. Its not like I really had anything to go on - I just wanted to get her into the new conjoined pantheon and the easy way to go about it was to say she's always been there, under another name. Being the 'Queen of Fairies', I figure she's got wings, so why not make her Aerdrie.

So by giving me the info you just did, now I have another piece for my growing puzzle. 'The Frost Sprite Queen' was probably supposed to be the Elven God of winged things (through her connection to Sprites), but when she got cast out (and note, and old Dragon article says she's worked with Lolth!), that portfolio got handed over to Rhiannon (who became Aerdrie Faenya).

So as the QoA&D Auril was probably part of lolth's Dark Seldarine, but in the Realms that little secret never really came to light.

I also think Umberlee is another one who lost her spot back then - she's another 'Queen' ('The Bitch Queen', so possibly a sea hag?)

Corellon needs his own harem anime. LOLOf course, most of these chicks want to kill him now. I mean, the guy commits genocide every time someone chops down a tree somewhere... he has a bit of the 'psycho ex' thing going on.

Just to note, the info on TRQ states that she opposed Lolth's uprising and aided the Seldarine and took the portfolio of Fate from Lolth as part of her reward.

I kind of get this picture of there being an "entity" ... who kills a "god of death and the dead" while his consort/wife. The other gods "refuse to let her have the portfolio of the dead", because of how they just saw her use souls to empower herself. SOMETHING happens and she loses her name (she says she deliberately lost it, but what god would say the other gods affected her). At this point, I'm thinking she becomes "the Queen of Air and Darkness" and forms the Unseelie Court. Meanwhile, other Eladrin/Archfey/Leshay form the Seelie Court.

Then Corellon begins to form a NEW court... the Seldarine... and in a fight encouraged by Araushnee... Corellon and Gruumsh go at one another. A new lesser elven race is formed which must live its life outside of "heaven" which is Arvandor. Thus did Araushnee technically set the destiny of elves to be born.

Later set the stage for the Anti-Seldarine invading Arvandor. Corellon falls from an arrow from Eilistraee that's redirected by Lolth. I'm picturing things looking very bleak for the Seldarine. Then who shows up? The Queen of Air and Darkness with her Unseelie Fey, and Sorrowsworn Demons. She rescues the Seldarine and pushes out the Anti-Seldarine, and also wants to force Araushnee to give up the portfolio of "weaver of destinies". At this point, she also offers to try and give elves a path to becoming immortal again if they will invest her with their faith. Many elves turn to her, in their grief and sorrow at seeing Corellon fallen.

But then three elven goddesses get together, and they turn to some elven high mages who are avariels, and they tempt these high mages into performing a ritual that will draw upon the power of the Queen of Air and Darkness in order to make themselves more powerful. However, the wizards don't realize that this ritual will not have the effects which they intended.... essentially, these three elven goddesses have given them a ritual which sunders the Queen of Air and Darkness into multiple entities... but in return allows THEM to form Angharradh.

Thus is created a demon lord named Ereshkigal, an Archfey named Kiara Unseelie (Kiaransalee), a Primal Power named Auril, a power of Shadow named The Raven Queen, and possibly other entities. Slowly each of these separate entities begins working towards attaining godhood again.

@Baltas -Well, Rhiannon was a tough one for me, because I started shoe-horning her in late in my Over-Cosmology, and since I had no other 'secondary' alias for Aerdrie Faenya (unlike the other two, who thanks to 4e we know are regular FR gods as well), so that's why I placed her as I did. Unlike most of what I do, I just took the easy route with her, instead of trying to dig deeper into the lore (because tying all these mythologies together - including D&D - is already becoming a monumental chore).

However, I agree that Freya makes a lot of sense for Aerdrie Faenya, so I may just say all three are the same being. She is just known as 'Freya' among the Norse. I don't think there is anywhere near as many gods as people think - maybe a couple of hundred - and everything else are just 'local names' for the same gods in other pantheons. I think a LOT (all? Except for Corellon?) of the Fey/Elven pantheon wound up in numerous human (and other) pantheons, under other names.

Maybe Lurue was Rhiannon's horse.

Lurue and Eachthighern are tough to place, because they appear to be 'primal powers', rather than gods. I'd say they both came out of the Feywild/Faerie, as primal powers, and the two are just the male and female aspects of Mana itself (mana being both 'life' and 'magic', so that the 'life' part ties into Eachthighern's healing aspect). Thus, I think both of them were only 'born' as a result of the Dawn War, when the Lattice of Heaven was shattered (because in my homebrew mythos, Aeon merged with the dying Ymir to form a new, conjoined supernal, called 'Gaea', and thus 'life' and 'nature' {the natural world} became intertwined, and a new energy was formed that had a duel-nature - Mana).

Gaea, like Corellon, is neither male nor female, but is often assigned the female pronoun. Ymir, the first 'Skyfather', merged with 'Life' (Prana/Aeon), and became a duel-natured being (so the 'two sides of magic' thing). This also why in some settings, magic is sometimes described as having a 'masculine' and 'feminine' nature (like in WoT). But describing things like that is very... primitive. It is a more basic juxtaposition of Law vs Chaos. The masculine side represents patterned behavior (Order), while the feminine side is Chaos, but these are pure forms, and have absolutely nothing to do with good & evil. In fact, they can be consider amoral (morality is a human construct anyway). The masculine side of the universe wants to build stable empires, while the feminine side is all about freedom of expression, art, and creativity.

So when I start getting into the 'Higher Order' of Gods (Estelar, primordials, and beyond them Eternals & Supernals), those being are all androgynous in their true form (really just blobs of energy), and they can be called by different names and be represented by both sexes in their aspects. In other words, everything at that tier should have both a 'male half' and a 'female half', which is both their 'other side', but also a completely separate being. So when I use terms like 'divine feminine' and 'divine masculine' I am not trying to do anything sexist - I am trying to interpret the two conditions of our universe into religious terminology folks are more familiar with. Both are necessary for the survival of the universe - one half could not live without the other, and when there is an imbalance, the world becomes 'ill'.

Selūne & Shar in FR are the prefect representation of this. You could just as easily refer to Shar as Selūne's 'brother' (or vice-versa). It doesn't matter a wit, because they predate mortal beings and sexuality. Selūne tends to represent the 'softer side' of the universe, while Shar the harsh reality of it, hence why I say Shar is more of the 'masculine' side (that, plus her desire to rule over everything - the desire to control is the purest form of 'Order' {Law}, and at its core is the evil of tyranny). They are both aspects of Shiva (a supernal in my cosmology) - creation through destruction. And in reality, both 'sisters' have aspects of both halves that we see manifest in the lore, and in Mystryl/Mystra. The Weave and the Shadoweave - really always one and the same. Saying they were two different things was just Shar's delusion - one could not exist without the other. It's like trying to say there are two different 'Forces' (SW), when in reality, there's just the 'light side' and the 'dark side' of the same energy.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

@Slevas - this is why The Raven Queen is so hard for me to wrap my head around. For all intents and purposes, she is a BRAND NEW diety. Heck, they even have her killing-off a current deity in the first AD&D setting (GH) to gain her godhood - a deity that was most definitely alive and well in 3e! And then they have her doing stuff way back in the timeline - it just makes no sense. It was bad design, to be honest. I love the concept, but they should NOT have made her an 'ancient power'. You can't shoe-horn an Elder God into the backstory of D&D - it just breaks too many things.

Maybe we can 'fix' her? And tie it to her lore (perhaps they were thinking along these lines as well?) She seems to be searching for something. We also see a very bad paradox within her backstory (the part about Nerull). What if that hasn't happened yet? What if tRQ is an 'echo' from the future (before she destroyed Nerull)? She is 'sent back in time' (I know... a collective groan from the fanbase) by Chronepsis (thus causing his own transition into Chronos), in order to stop something terrible from happening. She shows up and helps the Seldarine against Lolth's forces - which she probably wasn't supposed to do - and now her own future has become unraveled (which is why she is an 'echo' - she is paradox itself at this point - she 'unmade' herself by accident, but if she did that, than she wouldn't be able to unmake herself - she is 'stuck' in this loop, with no future and no past). Maybe she is looking for her own unborn soul?

As to what she was actually sent back to do - I would tie it to the illithids and gith (and possibly Tiamat, depending on what they do there in MToF), if for no other reason we already have a major D&D storyline there about something 'going back in time' to correct stuff, and we really don't need a bunch of different versions of that.

ALSO, there is a 'mysterious figure' in the Gith backstory. Gith himself goes to hell to ask for Tiamat's help. She agrees, and gives the Gith control over Red Dragons... but Gith himself never returns from hell! We have no idea what he offered her in return, but he didn't come back, and instead some mysterious female figure comes back to the gith - the Lich Queen - and takes over. And at that time, Tiamat herself was a prisoner in hell... she was trapped looking for any way possible to get out.

And as we know, the Illithids are from the future, and they have come back trying to fix something (we have no idea what). And they created the gith, who in-turn must have given or done something for Tiamat. And suddenly there is a new powerful, female character on the scene, while Gith simply disappears.

And then we have the Raven Queen, who seems to have just come out of nowhere in 4e (and yet, conversely, has 'history' she was always around), with no memories of who she was, but she somehow killed a god to get here - a god who isn't dead yet. There is one hell of a great story in there somewhere.

Isn't there another goddess associated with Ravens? Aside from Odin, I mean. I toyed with the idea she was one of Odin's birds (they could have been exarchs who took raven form), and possibly Kiaransalee being the other, but that doesn't really makes sense other than the raven connection. From a website I just found trying to find ravens (crows) associated with goddesses...

quote:Many of the Celtic goddesses are linked with the raven or crow. In this mythology the goddesses are the aggressive deities, those associated with war and death. Badb, Macha and Nemain are all associated with crows and/or ravens, as is Nantosuelta, a Gaulish water and healing goddess. The wife of the Fomorian sea-god, Tethra, was said to be a crow goddess who also hovered above battlefields, and Scottish myth has the Cailleach Bheure, who often appeared in crow form. The association of the birds with death and war is an obvious reflection of its tendency to eat carrion, plenty of which is to be found in the aftermath of battle. This tendency led, eventually, to the persecution of the raven, as a harbinger of doom and destruction, and also to the common notion in modern European culture that the main attribute of Crow and Raven is their connection with the Otherworld. Upon Cuchulainnās death, the Morrigan perched on his shoulder in the form of a raven.

Tethra sounds like a good giantish version of tRQQ. Dharmapalas in Eastern religion are also associated with ravens (they sometimes take raven form as a 'portent') - although they look demonic, they behave more like 'guardian angels' over mortals. I can see The Raven Queen using some of these as servants, as well.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

Yeah, if you look at what I just did... I kind of circumvented the "she's an ancient deity" thing.... kinda.... Basically, all the things where modern priests of her are saying that TRQ did.... TRQ doesn't EXIST until the Queen of Air and Darkness is broken up following/during the descent. However, she's talking about the thing that maybe the QoA&D did... and THAT works... we have no clue how old the QoA&D is.

Throw into this that this action that hits the QoA&D possibly caused by these Elven High Mages CAN have the potential to "reach forward and backward in time".... because the Sundering does something similar... such that maybe it creates the beings that will eventually merge into the QoA&D in the past. So, their magic ends up separating the QoA&D into these individual entities, but it also reaches into the past and forms them there as well.... such that presumably at some point.... the QoA&D causes ALL of these entities that are HER to lose their own identities (losing their names) and merge with her to make the QoA&D that's enough of a big bad that she's able to show up and stop Lolth..... and then get separated out by some High Mages.... whose magic reaches back and forms the individual entities back in the present and the past again.... and uses the magic drawn from this separation to allow Angharradh to form.

Oh, and just to note, each of these "entities" that I'm creating is a "different" type of entity (i.e. archfey, primal power, power of the shadowfell, abyssal ruler, etc...) and I'm doing that on purpose. ANOTHER entity I plan on creating is a giant nyama-nummo from the land of nightmares which is a mix of vulture and dinosaur, and I had been planning on using the lore I'd found on "the vulture king" named Heresa Hesi from Brazil. You can read the myth at the below... it talks about the Vulture being beautiful because it kept all kinds of power until the puma took the power from it.

However, since I can't find JACK about this god other than a few spots on the web... I've decided to instead make it the "Vulture Queen" and name it Neresa Skicksae (noting that the Raven Queen is Nera long ago).... and the vulture people that serve her call themselves the Skicksae... and they sacrifice to her to strengthen her, but they also "draw" from her to keep themselves alive. (note, looking for a better spelling of Skicksae without directly spelling it as Skeksi... as a homage to Dark Crystal).

So, to get back to the original premise... there were multiple entities of different types.... they all lost their identities and merged to form the QoA&D.... who was separated out again by a ritual provided by Seldarine goddesses to elven High Mages that were avariels... which possibly decimated the avariel race and transformed them... but this spell used the energy gained by separating the QoA&D to allow these elven goddesses to temporarily form Angharradh... and Angharradh "separated" Araushnee, and at least one aspect from this separation became Lolth. Then just prior to the spellplague, we see Lolth creating multiple entities again that will represent her.... almost like she was trying to merge again into Araushnee. She even tried to gather enough energy to do this with a "demon weave".

Wow, you went in almost the exact opposite way I did. I have it where Aurilandur was THE entity, and then her psyche was fragmented and dispersed into the Frost Regalia (or Regalia of Winter - both names can be used). Other being using those items explains why bit and pieces of the original goddess' memories are spread among them.

In my version, The Raven Queen hasn't killed Nerull. Not yet, anyway. Aurilandur was so badly shattered by the Black Diamond (a Shard of Pure Evil) that her entire timeline -past, present, & future - got jumbled-up and dispersed. This is why I say Chronepsis had to become involved - she became 'out of order'. The killing of Nerull was supposed to be something the Frost Sprite Queen was fated to do at some point in the future. Thus, tRQ is an 'echo' of a future that (probably) won't happen now.

This is why there has to be very strict rules about time travel (maintained by a Supernal) - a person can become a deity by killing a god, and then go back to an earlier point in the timeline before they killed that god, so both could coexist (the same bit of 'godhood' coexisting in two different beings). That breaks all the rules, and universe could unravel. I'm not quite sure why no-one is going after tRQ because of that - it could be why she is so very neutral and tries not to interfere with anything (because as a 'living paradox', she could screw-up so much more). It could be that her existence changed something for the better (as I said earlier, I am thinking about the Illithids backstory here), and that's why the Gods leave her alone. To correct that 'mistake' would mean putting things back to a worse scenario. For some reason, fiction that deals with Time Travel always assumes the 'correct' timeline is the best one, but that shouldn't be. There could be alternate realities where things turned out much better than in the main one. Our current (D&D) reality might be just that - a 'broken' timeline where something major had been resolved already.

So lets get back to tRQ - if she is an 'echo of the future', then there is a chance she isn't even born yet. That is what I think she might be searching for - her own soul.

As fr the Queen of Air & Darkness, we have a vERY good idea of how old she is. I can probably pinpoint the exact year. She existed in the original fey homeland as Aurilandur. Now, according to sources (ones I've extrapolated, but now confirmed by the MToF videos) - the Elves/Fey were 'moved' from where they lived to 'elsewhere', at least twice. Although they were created out of 'Feystuff' from the Feywild, that's NOT where they lived. Not at first. They lived with corellon. Then later, the elves abandoned Corellon (I forget what the reasons were - I need to rewatch the video) and 'moved out'. Now we could say Ladinion was a place int he feywild where the Archfey already existed, or we could say it was someplace in Arvandor (when Corellon took them there), or we could say it was wherever they went to after they left Corellon (which should be back to the Feywild from whence they came, because that is where we see them at the beginning of the Evermeet novel - in Fęrie/The Feywild).

Regardless of where I stick Ladinion in those three choices (really two choices - because 1 & 3 are the same place, and I don't really think Ladinion should be in Arvandor, so its definitely the feywild somewhere), the Timeline from our perspective changes very little, because all of that HAD TO have occurred weberoe Ao twinned the worlds, because the GHotR specifically states the elves (Fey) were living in Faerie just before the Sundering. Since the that places it between the Dawn War and Ao's Sundering, i would hazard to guess they Black Diamond affair happened during the Godswar, which should have fallen-out within a 3000 year window, between -34,000 DR (when the Fey were living/ruling in the Feywild peaceably), and -25,400 DR when they flee the feywild to Toril (although, obviously only the Tintageer elves did that, because we now know many others stayed behind... and became the Eldarin). Hmmmm... I forget how I arrived at my original 3K 'window'. That gives us 8,400 years. But I think the Godswar was already over before the second date. if I go with the date of when the 'regular elves' (Sylvan Elves') left Faerie, thats -27,000 DR. And then also use the date of the Sundering (twinning) - 31K, we still get 4000 years. I may have just used the 'umbrella date' in The Dawn Ages entry of 30K, and the date for the arrival of the (Green) Elves.

Anyhow, that a very loose 'window' for the Godswar, near as I can tell. Some initial battles may have taken place earlier, and a few 'brushfire' encounters later (it wasn't really a 'war' at all - more like a bunch of individual battles between gods trying to 'even the score' with rivals from the last war), but that's the general timeline. I relate this to the Fey because THAT is when Corellon and Gruumsh had their falling out (or rather, when it finally came to a head... and an eye). The Godswar is specifically named as the conflict in which that happened in the 2e CBoE (and that might be the very first source mentioning that war).

So we have fey lore saying all the fey had to flee their homeland at some point (from Monster Mythology, and we also have elven lore via Elaine's novel (and later GHotR confirmation) that the elves had to flee Tintageer. I think they are related. 'Enemies' are mentioned, and this is also around the time Corellon and Gruumsh had just broken ties for good. There was a great shake-up in the feywild going on, and battle-lines were being drawn up. I don't think those sylvan Elves were so much 'sent' to Toril, as they were refugees - common folk fleeing the war being fought among the 'nobles' (a beings of power - Gods, exarchs, arch-this & that, etc.). On the other hand, perhaps the war itself involved the dragons (I know they must have been involved at some point, because they are specifically mentioned in the GHotR in that entry), and toward the end of the war companies of elven dragon-hunters were 'sent forth' to chase them down? Not sure, though... it doesn't seem like they were successful AT ALL.

Anyway, I haven't worked out a proper timeline for all that - it's all interrelated but very convoluted. Regardless, the QoA&D should predate the arrival of the Sylvan Elves in -27000 DR. Aurilandur may have been still around during the initial version of the setting - Abeir-Toril - but she would have already become the Queen of Air & Darkness by the time the worlds were twinned into Abeir and Toril.

I'm just rewatching that video (Eladrin) for the 3rd time, and there are some things I am going to have to disagree with. The story he puts forth doesn't really fit with FR history of the drow (because OUR Dark Elves weren't always known to Lolth). I really can't do anything with this stuff until I see MToF, and it appears they are totally ignoring fey lore in favor of Elven lore, which should no longer be possible, since the elves ARE fey now.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

Wow, this thread exploded again lol. I kind of skimmed through the comments, trying to catch up.

Just a quick note: I like Markus' idea about the masculine/feminine, hard/soft, chaos/order. It is very much a Yin/Yang concept, and the idea of "gender" doesn't apply to deities in the way it does from a mortal perspective (of course, even among mortals, I think we try too hard to put everyone in a binary gender box, but anyway). Some deities of course are associated with very feminine concepts, such as childbirth, and their best known form is that of a female. The same principle applies to deities who appear masculine.

All the Seldarine are known for being both male/female (Cormanthyr has statues representing each deity in both their forms), Corellon is just the most well-known for it. He (using that pronoun for simplicity's sake), most often "appears" (as in his avatar) as male, if an androgynous one.

I really don't know what to make of TRQ. I remember reading about her in some of the D&D novels, and I just assumed she was the "core" D&D version of Kelemvor. If we're going with the multispheric idea again (which WotC seems to be doing, anyway, at least with deities like Lolth), where there are different "Lolth's" but they all originate from a "Lolth ball of energy", then the Lolth of FR started out--or came to Toril--as Araushnee. In a way, this supports the idea that all the various "branches" of the deities from their original "origin ball" develop their own motives and personalities, with some similarities. Anyway, Araunshnee transforms (literally) into Lolth, undergoing a from of apotheosis--even though she is already a goddess at this point--and turning into Lolth. If we go with the theory of the split goddess, then the "Araushnee split" was then a further change on an already-changed entity, and again, going with the "origin ball" theory, like the branches of a tree, one branch can split off and form more branches.

What if the Lolth from one world met a Lolth from another? O.o Do the gods know there are multiple aspects of themselves (and I don't mean the whole Sune/Henali aspect of 4e kind of thing)? The gods of Toril (for example) are very much involved in what is going on in their Realmspace, and they probably know there is MORE out there, but they aren't sure of what? What about AO knowing of other overpowers, since there seems to be implications that HE has a "boss"?

And, just to throw a wrench in it, what about Sigil and the Lady of Pain? I realize we are discussing specifics right now with TRQ and how she factors in, but Sigil has been on my mind recently, so I thought I would bring it up here. Sigil is supposedly at the "center" of the multiverse (if the multiverse can even truly have such a thing as a center).

Wow, you went in almost the exact opposite way I did. I have it where Aurilandur was THE entity, and then her psyche was fragmented and dispersed into the Frost Regalia (or Regalia of Winter - both names can be used). Other being using those items explains why bit and pieces of the original goddess' memories are spread among them.

OR we could go with the idea that... like Sauron became somewhat.... the QoA&D wasn't ever an individual (we had kind of thrown this around previously). I really like your regalia idea, but perhaps the QoA&D started out as a mental thing from some other place. So, kind of like Pandorym, she IS a plane. Its a plane of darkness, death, and bone-chilling winds. Its filled with crystals of utter blackness. These crystals are what are placed into the "Regalia of Winter".... maybe a better fitting name might be "Regalia of Winter, Winds, and Woe".

One day some dwarves from the feywild wandered over there, and they brought back A black diamond. With the black diamond, she took over Aurilandur.

Similarly, The Raven Queen, Kiaransalee, Ereshkigal, Cegilune... they're all seized by this entity at some point via some piece of "the regalia". Each "forgets" themselves and is "infected" as the Queen of Air and Darkness... and slowly she was becoming more and more powerful. She forms the Unseelie Court. Then the war of the Seldarine and Anti-Seldarine breaks out (for possibly Araushnee thought to follow in the footsteps of the QoA&D somewhat).

The QoA&D shows up to "aid" the Seldarine (in the form of the Raven Queen), but her true goal is to subsume Araushnee. But the three Seldarine goddesses work with avariel high mages (noting the avariel have ties to Aurilandur), and they cast a powerful ritual of High Magic that sunders the QoA&D... and the individual beings of power that had been subsumed by the regalia are again freed (or maybe the bonds are "weakened"). The power released allows Angharradh to form, and they curse Araushnee, stripping her of her godhood. The avariel High Mages are twisted by the power of the "dark crystal" and transformed into the Nagpa.

You know... thinking on this a little.... Kiaransalee "destroyed" Orcus by causing his name to be forgotten.... and this strange entity of "darkness and death".... Tenebrous, the shadow that was.... took over. I don't want to say Tenebrous IS the QoA&D.... but what if they're the same KIND of entity... or from the same place.... and what if they have a convoluted past... sometimes working together and sometimes hating each other.

Hmmm,

I do want to have it reflect more than just winter in its name. I see this QoA&D as representing death, darkness, winter/frozen winds.

Except its not a mental thing - the story around her is quite specific. She was the Frost Sprite Queen - Titania's sister - and she became corrupted. That's the base my own stuff leaps off from. The fact that her title was 'Frost Sprite Queen' came out of 4e, i believe, as well as the knowledge that she was Auril(andur) all along.

I am able to bend the second part of the canon by creating the Regalia of Winter and injecting it into the original story, without changing the original story. This gives us the ability to 'stretch' the canon around her later incarnation(s). Only the 'pure corruption' (from the Black Diamond) part remains in her original body, in my homebrew lore. Her own persona was shattered and scattered (however, she may have gotten some of that back - she seems to have become more... approachable... in 4e/5e, and that probably has to do with her recovering the Ring of Winter), or maybe the Ice Necklace from Ulutiu.

In the Cthulhu Cycle (mythos), their is an 'Elder God (Evil)' called Ithaqua, and I think it could possibly be another aspect of the Dark God (Elder Elemental Eye, Tharizdun, etc.), and it would makes a lot of sense to tie that thing to the original corruption of the Queen of Air & Darkness (as an Elder Evil, and associated with both cold and Wind, its a really good fit). If we say Ithaqua was an obyrith looking to steal someone else's portfolios, it all works - he plants the Black Diamond (Shard of Pure Evil) for the dwarves to find, and then the story continues as in the canon version. It doesn't do a lot for us in FR, or even makes any difference in regards to how things are today, but it roots the tQoA&D story further into the Deep Cosmology of the D&D universe.

I can't believe, after all these years, I am finally embracing 'Antidelvian Horrors'.

Anyhow, the 'shattering of minds' is definitely something that works well in the context of Cthulhuan entities.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

Elves breed. Barely, but they do. They don't over-breed, because when your species lives a thousand years, it can cause a LOT of problems. Now, from older sources and now very much focused on in MToF, we see that Elves (all varieties, including Eladrin & Drow) have 'divine blood'. Now, I don't really care for them pushing that, because much the same can be said about other races, one way or another.

Regardless, lets say Elves have this 'divine spark'. They got it in the beginning from Corellon... and it was 'pure' (his blood). Then they breed, and make more elves. This might contribute to something known among Fey as 'The Dwindling' (lessening of their divinity). Also, Elves have bred with many other races over the years, mostly human. Now, I think this is why some humans can 'do sorcery', and why I think Fey magic (and thus, original Elven Magic) is based on the same - its an extension of the being itself, calling upon 'the power within'. That is divinity in a nutshell. For races with it, magic comes naturally. The greater the percentage of 'divine blood', the more cosmic forces you can call upon. Humans don't 'do magic' naturally - they ether need a magical (divine) bloodline, or they have to 'hack' the system (which is how I think of Vancian magic - its the underlying 'code' of the Universe). Basically, Vancian Spells are 'cheat codes' in D&D.

Anyhow, getting back to the elves - over the years many of us have speculated that 'Divinity' itself is of a finite amount. In my own cosmological musings, I have it where there was ONE, and it split into two, and then another, and then several more splits (The Supernals), who then created many other beings (Estelar & Primordials, etc.), so that initial GODHEAD has been split and resplit and re-resplit, ad infinitum. I would speculate that the first mortal races weren't supposed to have any (The Creator Races - Creatori). The Elves, however, were an accident. They got a great big dose of divinity right near the beginning (so those first Archfey were at least demigods), but each time they procreate they lose a little - they dwindle.

So this is why the Eldarin are so much more Fey then the regular elves, and why the LeShay stand above even the Eldarin. All that divinity they had in the beginning keeps getting watered-down with each generation, and a major part of why elves barely breed - whether they even realize it or not (it could just be an ingrained cultural thing at this point) - is because they are slowly "becoming just like everybody else". And to an elf, that would be horrifying.

Now, applying this forward to the orcs/goblinoids - who were indeed fey themselves at some point - they breed like vermin. Their divinity has become so watered down even regular clerical magic is difficult for them (they produce almost exclusively Shaman/Witchdoctors). The orcs (and other goblins) are an example of what would happen t elves if they bred like that. The orcs don't even have long lifespans anymore, because their blood has become some diffused - they are no better than humans in that regard now (and perhaps have degenerated beyond that point - they are becoming more feral/bestial like with each passing generation as well - they are loosing their 'sense of self'.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

Regardless, lets say Elves have this 'divine spark'. They got it in the beginning from Corellon... and it was 'pure' (his blood). Then they breed, and make more elves. This might contribute to something known among Fey as 'The Dwindling' (lessening of their divinity).

I have suggested this in comments in other threads, in regards to high magic and the "diluting" of the divine blood.

Yes, similar ideas have been thrown around, but I had never considered to apply it to why they breed so infrequently. They may 'lessen' themselves with each progeny. Incrementally, and perhaps minutely each time, but if they bred like orcs or even humans, the 'dwindling' would happen extremely fast, and by now they may have devolved to the point of orcs themselves, had they not curtailed their own procreation habits.

It could be there was a time a single Fey/Eladrin could cast High magic, and then they started needing small groups, and then larger groups, etc. They have probably switched over to the Vancian methods (I assume those are the methods detailed in the Nether Scrolls) because their own brand of magic has become too difficult for them with each passing generation.

It could also be why (in the new MToF) that Corellon had to turn his back on them - he needed to sever that connection, before he himself dwindled (just a theory, mind you) - that was his divinity they were diluting.

EDIT:And to take this a step further, why he had to do the 'Descent Curse' on the drow - he may have stripped them of his divinity, because he knew Lolth could hurt him just by having her followers 'over-breed' (spreading his divinity even thinner).

What if he instead switched his blood for Lolth's, so that she would feel the long-term effects? But she outsmarted him - by turning their society into a theocracy she offset the losses with worship?

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't one of the videos imply they (as in WotC) were getting rid of the "Descent Curse"? I may have to watch that video again, but it sounded like they were changing it, which I have mixed feelings about. I never really liked how the curse affected *all* drow, but I don't like them messing with previously established lore. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time LOL.

I don't think they ever said it didn't happen (in FR, specifically), but they tell a somewhat different story for generic D&D, which unfortunately these days does get applied directly to FR.

So its more like there is a different spin on what happened there, and they aren't even saying whether he cursed them or not... AFAIK. It appears they are just side-stepping the issue (in regards to FR). I still haven't gotten the book itself, which I plan to.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

I don't think they ever said it didn't happen (in FR, specifically), but they tell a somewhat different story for generic D&D, which unfortunately these days does get applied directly to FR.

So its more like there is a different spin on what happened there, and they aren't even saying whether he cursed them or not... AFAIK. It appears they are just side-stepping the issue (in regards to FR). I still haven't gotten the book itself, which I plan to.

They said nothing about the Realms, but they were pretty specific about why the elves--all of them--look like they do. There was no curse involved: as they rebelled against Corellon, they lost their connection to Arvandor, their divinity, and their shapechanging ability. Their new fixed form was their favorite one/the one that reflected them. When the drow kept following Lolth, they were already drow.

That sounds like a universal origin--the history of the drow in the Realms may remain unchanged, all you have to do is just changing how the dark elves appeared pre-descent. The elven nations drove them in the Underdark after the Descent anyway (that's true even in the current version of their history), and--honestly--looking at the 2e books, at Elaine's Evermeet novel, it seems to me that the appearance-changing curse was a 3e idea (a *bad* one, if you ask me).

Whether Corellon cursed them or Lolth blessed them, the Dark Elves went from getting sustenance from sunlight (as all elves did, as per 2e's CBoE), to sunlight being anathema to them. If you want to say it wasn't Corellon (which seems to be the way this newer lore is leaning), then we'd have to go with Lolth having given them a perk to replace their old partial dependence on sunlight (most likely replaced with Faerzress, as per old lore as well).

It wouldn't be a Darwinian evolution thing (mainly because they would have all died before even one generation had gone by), because Elves do NOT evolve the way humans do (in fact, we have no evidence anything but humans and naturally occurring animals do). Elves 'evolve' spontaneously, changing their form to suit their current needs. Once Corellon "pulled away from them" (as per the new lore), they were no longer able to do this (easily) on their own, but they COULD still do it with divine help (as they do when they become sea elves - that is due to a prayer to Sashelas). Thus, if they needed to adapt quickly to their new subterranean environment, and asked for Lolth's aid, it would have simply drove them even further into her arms. Basically, it would appear (to them) that the Seldarine and surface elves condemned them to death (because surely, they never expected the dark Elves to survive the way they did), and Lolth was their 'savior'.

Pretty asshat move on Corellon's part, in hindsight.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

[quote]It wouldn't be a Darwinian evolution thing (mainly because they would have all died before even one generation had gone by), because Elves do NOT evolve the way humans do (in fact, we have no evidence anything but humans and naturally occurring animals do). Elves 'evolve' spontaneously, changing their form to suit their current needs. Once Corellon "pulled away from them" (as per the new lore), they were no longer able to do this (easily) on their own, but they COULD still do it with divine help (as they do when they become sea elves - that is due to a prayer to Sashelas). Thus, if they needed to adapt quickly to their new subterranean environment, and asked for Lolth's aid, it would have simply drove them even further into her arms. Basically, it would appear (to them) that the Seldarine and surface elves condemned them to death (because surely, they never expected the dark Elves to survive the way they did), and Lolth was their 'savior'.

Pretty asshat move on Corellon's part, in hindsight.

That's essentially how things are now, tho. When, in the current version (old lore), a whole people--including those who didn't deserve it, or even the non-Ilythiiri--was banished and cursed, they saw the Seldarine condemning them to death alongside the combined forces of the remaining elven empires forcefully driving them underground.

Who had remained to offer the guidance back then? Lolth, Vhaeraun, Ghaunadaur, Kiaransalee. Eilistraee had just been dealt a blow that reduced her to near-irrelevance for millennia, so--as much as she tried to do something for the drow--she couldn't really make a difference back then. It has always been my point that Corellon pushed the drow into Lolth's arms, aside from (probably unintentionally) kicking his own daughter when she was at her lowest.

The new lore isn't in contradiction with the old one, as long as you assume that the drow have always been drow (like, apparently, it was in 2e).

Well, I can still work with that, since there is a lot of (D&D) lore abut Dark Elves being 'Black' before FR's descent.

Extrapolating out of some of my Fey/Goblinoids (and Orcs) musings, which shoe-horns suspiciously well with the new spin on Elves ('they all used to be able to change into stuff'), I have it where the Dokalfar were the group that first turned away from Corellon, but they wewre more like anarchists, so no true 'unified group' at all. One of the main disputes was with aesthetics - some fey chose ugly forms and considered it an 'artform' (how much they can horrify others). The Seelie Fey (the ones that stayed true to the Fey Courts and Seldarine) frown upon this choice - they felt they were final arbiters on what should be considered 'art'. So Goblins (Urchins) and Hobgoblins (Dark Eladrin) left the rest, lead away by Gruumsh, Maglubiyet, etc.

This was the first split of many, and would have probably occurred pre-Dawn war.

Now, some elves who disagreed with the judgement of the main body of elves (and Seldarine) on judging other's concept of 'art' were also considered 'Dark Elves', but were still (at that time) considered part of the group that preferred traditional forms of beauty. So they agreed with the aesthetic of the other elves, but disagreed with them on principle ('freedom of expression'). At this time I think they - since the other elves had begun to refer to them as 'Dark' - started to outwardly appear as such, wearing 'Black face' as public display of their own disagreement of the ban on the Unseelie elves (Goblinoids), and their solidarity with their forlorn kin. This caused them to eventually become ostracized as well ("agree with EVERYTHING we say and do, or you must be an enemy!" Sound familiar?)

Right around this time, when tensions were building once again among the elves/Fey, the Dawn War broke-out, and literally, all hell broke loose. The attitude of "you need to agree with me COMPLETELY or I will brand you an enemy" attitude became almost universal, and not just among the elves. One group of dark Elves left for the Shadowfel (the Shadar-Kai), disgusted by what was going on (at that time, 'shadow' was considered more about balance - darkness that only exists because of the Light). Later, when Lolth and others turned on Corellon and the rest of the Seldarine, other groups left as well. The most prominent were the Dark Elves who wore 'faces of pure Black' - the Drow. They left to settle in the recesses of the wilderlands, in the remotest parts of Midgard (the original prime Material Plane). They took to living below the earth, in secret, in what became known as Aos Si ('Faery Mounds').

All beings and races were drawn into the war eventually, whether they wanted to or not. Corellons children - the elves - were the most volatile. On the one hand siding with the Dragons and Dwarves against the primordials, freeing them, and then turning on the dragons in the aftermath because they were being too destructive (as destructive as the elemental forces they were trying to fight against). At this point there was another split - while many stayed 'in the heavens' to fight the war with the Seldarine, an equally large group went to pursue the dragons, who had disappeared from the battlefield (these would be our later Green/Sylvan Elves - the more 'earthy' elves that became common among the worlds). Now, some legends say this group split off in disgust, as the Shadar-Kai did, while other stories say it was the leaders - the Eladrin themselves - they sent their 'lesser kindred' out to pursue the dragons and thwart them (this fixes the continuity between the 3e/4e version and the new 5e version). This occurred right at the end of the Dawn War, when the Lattice of Heaven was shattered (thus many of the dragons and Green Elves wound up in suspended animation, until the forming of the Crystals Spheres and worlds around them).

As for the Eldarin - because they had stayed true to the Seldarine and remained right up until the end, they were allowed to remain in the Feywild (which used to be the Wilderlands, and sometimes even called the 'Giant Wilds' - this region of the planes was 'liberated' from the primordials after the war). Thus, the Feywild would be their bridge directly to Arvandor, which they could go to whenever they chose (I picture Arvandor being half in Arborea, and half in The Feywild). At a later time - likely during the Godswar - Tintageer (in the feywild) was destroyed, and those Eladrin were forced to flee to Toril.

I still can't put together a more concise timeline, because I don't have MToF yet. On the surface, it appears the Elven history is one of people getting very disgusted with their leadership and leaving, wave after wave after wave.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

Do we know if MtoF mostly concerns elven (and their offshoots, like the shadar-kai) lore? I am getting the impression they go into elven history quite a bit, but at only 200-something pages, if they address other things, the section on elves might be rather brief.

For example, they also get into the illithid/gith/Tiamat backstory as well (which, while not as convoluted as the elven sub-races and Seldarine, still seems fairly involved and monolithic to the greater D&D mythos).

They also get into the Blood War. Its going to be like a combination of a Manual of the Planes and a Fiend Folio (MM for Outsiders). Thus, I am not expecting a lot of tiny details, just 'broad strokes'.

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone

Do we know if MtoF mostly concerns elven (and their offshoots, like the shadar-kai) lore? I am getting the impression they go into elven history quite a bit, but at only 200-something pages, if they address other things, the section on elves might be rather brief.